The British author’s winning debut uses a telephone helpline’s logs as the jumping-off point for a moving fusion of personal memoir and cultural document
Elizabeth Lovatt, 28, is writing “a list of all the signs I might be gay”. She lists, among other characteristics many queer women will recognise (including this reviewer): “Tomboy growing up … Likes plaid … Beer/shandy? . … Penises look weird (do all women think this?).” Thus opens Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line, Lovatt’s debut: part memoir, part historical document and part creative nonfiction.
Her journey into the world of lesbian telephone helplines begins in London at Finsbury library during her time as writer in residency for Islington’s Pride. In the archive, among much other ephemera, she finds a shiny black A4 journal entitled Women’s Line Logbook.
